Two former members of Academia Sinica were indicted for defrauding the institute of more than NT$34.8 million (US$1.12 million) using fake documents and purchases, Shilin prosecutors said yesterday.
The prosecutors charged the two people with fraud and 12 others with falsifying quotations and receipts, and asked for their illicit gains to be confiscated, the Shilin District Prosecutors' Office said in a statement.
From 2019 to 2020, one of the former researchers, surnamed Chang (張), bought equipment for his own tech company from 11 manufacturers, but had the purchases quoted as made by his Academia Sinica lab, prosecutors said.
Photo: Taipei Times
He then instructed a fellow researcher and company shareholder, surnamed Chi (紀), to submit reimbursement claims to Academia Sinica, defrauding the institute of more than NT$18.83 million, the statement said.
Prosecutors said that in 2019, Chang's company won six Academia Sinica procurement bids worth more than NT$15.89 million, but the institute never kept the items it paid for as Chi, who oversaw lab purchases, sent them back to Chang's firm after delivery and inspection.
In addition, from 2019 to 2021, Chang allegedly used Academia Sinica to dispose of his company's battery cell waste by passing it off as lab waste, costing the institute more than NT$70,000, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors urged heavy sentences for Chang and Chi, citing the scale of the financial fraud, the statement said.
Academia Sinica’s Institute of Physics said in a statement yesterday that the two people involved were not “researchers” as reported by local media.
One of them was a former contract staff and the other person was a visiting academic, the statement said.
The term “researcher” is used to refer to full professors and staff members of the same rank, it said.
It is regrettable that the two were involved in this case, the statement said.
The institute said it has been fully cooperating with investigators and would carry out necessary measures to prevent similar events from happening again.
Additional reporting by Yang Yuan-ting and Fion Khan
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